


How We Say 'I Love You': A S.H.I.E.L.D. Guide to Romance

by Beth H (bethbethbeth)



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Romance, SHIELD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-08
Updated: 2013-12-26
Packaged: 2017-12-18 03:50:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/875295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bethbethbeth/pseuds/Beth%20H
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everybody thinks that Clint and Phil are just like the protagonists in a romance novel.  </p><p>Okay, nobody thinks anything of the sort, not even Clint and Phil.  </p><p>It's still love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Language of Flowers

**Author's Note:**

> Chinese translation from evekitten: http://www.mtslash.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=93952 (registration required)

It's not all super-villains bent on the destruction of society or aliens with plans to take over the Earth. Sometimes Agents Phil Coulson and Clint Barton face more prosaic foes, like gunrunners or human traffickers or drug lords like Armando and Cecilia Costas, whose organization is - after seven years - finally in the process of being put out of business permanently by three of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s most elite teams.

The thirteen agents assigned to shut down the Costas family drug trade average fifteen years active field experience, and it would be nice if that translated to a smoothly run op, instead of a 'fucking episode of _This Week at Clown College_ ' as Phil called it twelve seconds after Agents Melville and Washington's covers were blown by an exploding piñata.

Clint, who knows a little something about clowns, is pretty sure that this has all turned out to be a hell of a lot less organized than any week at Clown College could possibly be. He's a smart guy, though, so even if he and his empty quiver weren't currently busy jumping off a first floor roof in pursuit of three slightly-used arrows, he wouldn't have shared that particular insight with Phil.

He lands hard on the ground, but after a quick scuffle with one of the last of Costas's guys who are still standing upright, he's up and moving quickly in the direction of Phil's last known position.

What he sees in the distance makes Clint wish like hell he had just a little of the super speed Pietro Maximoff had been born with, because there are _two_ of Costas's goons coming up behind Phil and no freaking way to get to him in time to help take them down.

"Coulson!" he yells. "Loki!"

And yeah, he feels like a complete dick using that name, but it's the fastest way to get Phil to turn around. By the time Clint gets within ass-kicking range, Phil's scooped up a pot of flowering something-or-other in each hand and knocked both would-be assailants out cold.

The two unconscious men are covered in peat, shards of broken terracotta, and red flower petals. Phil's covered in the same crap, but on him, it looks kind of hot.

Not that Clint's at all biased.

Looking around to make sure nobody from S.H.I.E.L.D. or from the Costas crew is watching, Clint reaches out and brushes off Phil's jacket, then disentangles a small flower stalk from Phil's thinning hair and tucks it neatly into his left lapel.

Phil raises an eyebrow, but chooses not to comment on Clint's sartorial embellishment. "Care to let me know why you decided to abandon your position on the roof, Agent Barton?"

"You know me, Agent Coulson," Clint replies. "I like to be where the action is."

Phil nods. "And this snapdragon?" he says, looking down at last to the flower in his lapel.

Clint shrugs. "Don't say I never gave you anything."

"I never would," Phil says, and if Clint is one of only a handful of people in the world who can recognize that the expression on Phil's face is a smile, well...that's just fine with him.


	2. Sweets for the Sweet [1]

Contrary to popular belief, Phil has no particular fondness for generating budget requests, signing off on performance evaluations, composing mission summaries, or handling any of the dozens of forms and reports that once used to be called 'paperwork,' but the work needs to be done, and doing what needs to be done without allowing himself to be distracted has always been one of Phil's chief strengths.

Clint, however, is precisely the sort of distraction that Phil has a particularly difficult time ignoring.

It isn't as if Clint is actually trying to disturb Phil's work. In fact, since arriving in Phil's office seventeen minutes ago and giving his boss a quick nod, he's been as unobtrusive as he ever gets, perching silently on the arm of the old brown leather sofa that's been a fixture in Phil's office for well over a decade. He doesn't sing, doesn't hum, doesn't share any dubiously amusing anecdotes with Phil, doesn't fidget...he just closes his eyes as if he were meditating and waits patiently for Phil to finish his work.

"How did everything go today?" Phil asks finally, and Clint can tell by the way Phil clicks the mouse that he's shutting down programs, one after another.

"Not bad," he answers, eyes still closed.

"Did anybody look promising in your group?"

"Two of the girls that Ojeda sent over and maybe that Doctors Without Borders guy," Clint says, knowing full well that Phil's already seen the complete range scores for everybody he worked with that afternoon. "The doc's out of practice, but his form's still good, and he's got a decent eye."

"Did you tell them they were going to be tested with a bow and arrow?"

"Maybe I did, and maybe I didn't," Clint says with a grin, before sliding off the couch and walking the three steps to Phil's desk.

Phil shakes his head. "Who decided to put you in charge of arms training?"

"I think you'll find that was Agent Phil Coulson, boss."

"Somebody's going to have to have a talk with that guy," says Phil, as he launches the encryption program and begins the final back-up of the day's work. 

He looks up in time to see Clint pull a small pink plastic bag out of his jacket pocket and toss it on top of the Captain America business card holder that mysteriously appeared in his office a week ago.

"The trash can's on the other side of the desk if you're doing housekeeping," Phil says affably. 

"Open it up before you decide it needs tossing," Clint says. 

Phil slides the pink-tinted plastic bag toward him and unzips the seal. "Hey, conversation hearts!"

Clint nods. "Alex and Katya were filling up a big jar at the reception desk when I walked by. I figured there wouldn't be any left by the time you were done for the day, so...yeah."

"You know," Phil says, as he pours the candy hearts out onto his desk and starts to organize them by color, "none of these actually have any phrases on them. Doesn't that sort of defeat the purpose?"

"Yeah," Clint says. "I asked about that. Katya said - and I quote - that all the pertinent intel had already been redacted for our convenience."

"That's surprisingly thoughtful of them," Phil says before selecting two hearts of each color and putting all twelve in his mouth at once. "You're welcome to share them with me," he adds, or at least that's what Clint _thinks_ Phil's candy-garbled words are.

"You know me, boss," Clint says. "I prefer to get my candy second-hand."

Phil nods, then gets up from his desk and pulls Clint towards him. The kiss is sweet and a little sticky and even without words, it's just right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] "[S]weets for the sweet" is a quote more often taken out of context than used appropriately. The phrase is spoken by Queen Gertrude in Shakespeare's play _Hamlet_ as she scatters flowers on Ophelia's grave, but "sweets for the sweet" is typically used by modern speakers as an endearment, generally accompanied by the gift of candy/sweets to one's beloved. I'm pretty certain that Clint only knows the most recent meaning, and that's likely true for Phil as well.


	3. A Candlelit Dinner for Two

They'd decided on three back-up meeting sites, and just in case, Phil and Clint both had directions to an old S.H.I.E.L.D. safehouse on the outskirts of Sarajevo, but as Phil makes his way down the stairs to the basement of an abandoned church near the Miljacka river, he's relieved to see evidence that Clint's already arrived.

There's no electricity, of course, but a few dozen squat cream-colored candles have been placed in a semi-circle on the far side of the room. Most of the candles are lit, but Phil still has to squint in the gloom to spot Clint. He's resting against an old crate, his right foot propped up on a rolled-up maroon and white robe.

"How's the ankle?" Phil asks, setting a canvas bag down on the floor. He hadn't been able to talk to Clint since being forced to sacrifice both his comm unit and his phone earlier in the afternoon, but he'd been able to see how hard Clint had landed on the street when he had to clear the roof with no warning.

"Kind of crappy," Clint says, "but it should be okay."

Phil nods. "I picked something up I think you're going to appreciate," he says, and pulls a plastic bag of ice out of the canvas bag.

"You are a fucking lifesaver," Clint exclaims, then closes his eyes as Phil wraps a discarded towel around the bag of ice and places it gently on Clint's ankle. "Where did you get that?"

"The same place I got this," Phil says, as he hands Clint a slightly dusty, chilled bottle of grape Nehi.

"Who still _makes_ this?" Clint asks, stretching out his hand to take the bottle from Phil. "Nobody, right?"

"Technically, you're correct."

"And yet, here it is," Clint says, cuddling the bottle in his arms like a baby.

"There it is," Phil says in agreement.

He watches as Clint removes the cap and takes a long drink. 

"Oh, that's great," he says with a sigh. "You want some?"

Phil shakes his head. He knows for a fact that objectively speaking, grape Nehi isn't 'great,' but nostalgia is a powerful force, and it's nice to see Clint enjoying himself after the day he's had. "I'm good with melting ice cubes," Phil says, indicating the bag on Clint's ankle.

Clint shrugs. "Your loss, man," he says, then reaches into a pocket and pulls out a slightly squashed peanut butter and jam sandwich. He hands half of it to Phil. "Admit it, you're amazed by the way I magicked this out of nowhere, aren't you?"

"I am," Phil says before taking a bite. "This is...actually pretty good. Where did it come from?"

"Magic."

"Other than magic."

"Made it this morning just before take off. I figured no matter what happened, we probably weren't going to get a chance to go out for dinner."

Phil takes another bite, then kneels down beside Clint. He leans over and rips a small hole at the top of the bag, removes a half-melted ice cube, and pops it in his mouth.

Clint grins. "I've got something even better than a flat peanut butter sandwich and ice cubes," he says, reaching into his breast pocket.

"What's that?" Phil asks.

"A working comm unit," he says, waving the device in the air. "Nat's setting up a new extraction plan, and we should be getting out of here sometime after midnight."

The sense of relief Phil feels is immense. Even if neither of them had been able to contact the rest of the team, he and Clint would have been able to find a way out of the city eventually. But with Clint's ankle the way it is and neither of them particularly fluent in Bosnian or Serbian, it's good to have Natasha at their backs.

"Is your ankle going to hold out until then?"

Clint frowns, and wiggles his foot slightly. "Yeah," he says. "I should be able to walk on it without too much trouble."

"Good." Phil sits cross-legged on the floor, then lifts Clint's right foot and sets it softly on his thigh before leaning back against a broken bench. .

A gentle breeze finds its way down the stairs, and the candles flicker as the two men finish their sandwiches.

Some melting ice drips out of the hole in the bag, dampening Phil's left trouser leg.

Phil rests his hand on Clint's shin.

Both men close their eyes and settle in to wait until midnight.


	4. Breakfast in Bed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's not always Clint who ends up in a hospital bed at the end of a mission.

The first things he notices as he begins the process of slowly dragging himself out of unconsciousness is that he's lying in a hospital bed and that he's unencumbered by restraints of any sort. 

These things lead him to believe he's safe, but whether he's 'well' is another matter.

Phil's head aches, he feels sharp pains in his chest with each shallow breath he takes, and his throat is too dry to swallow properly.

On the plus side, however, he seems to be in possession of all his limbs and the sight of the steady green light emanating from the monitor at the foot of the bed tells him his eyesight wasn't unduly affected by...the blast; there was a blast, he's certain of that.

Slowly, he moves his left arm to the side of the bed and quietly taps his index finger against the railing.

-dash dot dash dot  
-dot dash dot dot  
-dot dot  
-dash dot  
-dash

The fact that he can hear each of the soft taps lets him breathe a sigh of relief.

"Hey," whispers a very welcome voice from the right side of the bed. "I'm here. Are you okay?"

Phil tries to reply, then tries to smile, but both are beyond his limited capabilities at the moment. Somehow he finds the strength to turn his head slightly in the direction of the voice. He sees he's been fitted with a cast from just above the right elbow to just below the wrist, but he manages to flex the fingers of his right hand, and that seems to be enough to reassure Clint who exhales with one long shuddering breath.

Out of the corner of his eye, Phil sees Clint rise from the chair, turn on a small lamp to its lowest setting, then perch carefully on top of the bed railing, positioned perfectly so Phil can see him without having to move his head. Clint stretches out his left arm and so lightly that it's barely perceptible, he rubs his thumb over the knuckles of Phil's right hand.

Phil glances to the side and squints in the dim light, looking for...actually, he's not sure he knows what he's looking for.

Clint does, however. He moves closer, then slides his index finger under Phil's hand until it's pressed against his palm. "It's 3:38 a.m," he says quietly, the way he does when he's giving Phil a report and he's not sure they're alone. "Thursday morning. You're in a wing of Landstuhl Regional Medical Center."

Phil blinks twice in acknowledgement and waits for Clint to continue. 

"Nothing too serious apart from the arm, which they just finished re-setting, but you broke a couple ribs and you've got a concussion, so..."

Nothing out of the ordinary then, Phil thinks wryly. Pushing through the discomfort, Phil makes an effort to find out what happened to the Hydra cell, but by the time he's tapped out the first four dots, Clint's already telling him what he wants to know. "27 of their people in joint custody, Boss - us and the U.S. Army. Hendrix made a run for it, just like you knew he'd do, right after the explosion. I got him back though."

Clint waits until Phil furrows his brow before telling him how he stopped Hendrix. "Boomerang arrow," he says. "Told you they'd come in handy someday."

Phil wants to roll his eyes, but he's not entirely sure he can manage to do that without passing out. Clint seems to know what he's thinking though, and he flashes a quick grin at Phil, then leans forward and settles the palm of his hand gently on Phil's cheek.

"Thought we'd agreed not to scare the crap out of each other," he says, which maybe isn't exactly fair since Clint knows that the risks he takes when he's on missions scare the hell out of Phil at least once a month, but even if Phil were able to argue with Clint at the moment, he wouldn't. He knows exactly how Clint feels.

"Okay," Clint says quietly. "It looks like you're just about ready to pass out again, so I'm going to go out to the nurse's station and see if they need to run any post-op tests while you're vaguely coherent."

Phil blinks twice more in agreement. He considers asking Clint to get him something to eat, but just thinking about how much energy it would take to chew is exhausting.

"No way, Boss," says Clint, reading Phil's mind, the way he almost always can these days. "Nothing to eat or drink until they clear you for it."

No sooner do the words "pot" and "kettle" pass through Phil's mind than Clint grins again. "It's a pain in the ass when someone makes you follow the rules, isn't it?" he says, then leans down to brush a soft kiss against Phil's mouth.

Phil knows he should stay awake until the nurse arrives, should try to bring himself to full awareness so he can begin to debrief, but instead he lets his eyes close and falls back asleep with the taste of Clint's kiss - sweet as chocolate and powdered sugar - on his lips.


End file.
